The related applications describe an arrangement whereby wireless devices are divided into groups of devices. Each group is assigned a lieutenant, the devices in the groups provide acknowledgements to communications to the lieutenant for the group, and the lieutenant forwards a report of the acknowledgements it has or has not received. The devices may receive communications from their respective lieutenants or from other devices.
There may be other reasons that devices are grouped. In the event that some communications may be commands, each device may be assigned as a device that is to perform only certain commands, or the device may be only capable of performing some commands but not others. To facilitate the performance of only certain commands, commands may be sent with one or more group identifiers, and each device performs the commands corresponding to a group identifier of that device. The group identifier corresponding to the device may be part of the device, for example, being stored in ROM, or it may be dynamically assigned and reassigned as needed.
As described in the related applications, each device receiving a communication rebroadcasts the communication to the other devices in range of that device, allowing devices to receive a communication even if they are not in range of the device that sent the communication.
It may be desirable to allow devices to receive and rebroadcast communications that are not for the group to which the device is assigned. In this manner, the range of communications is extended for all devices.
It may also be desirable for a device to request the most recent communication for the group to which that device is assigned. The other devices in the same group can store the most recently received communication or communications for the group and rebroadcast it in response to such a request. In this manner, a device that does not receive a communication within an expected period of time can send such a request and receive the communication.
However, there is a problem with this approach. To be able to respond to such a request from devices assigned to groups other than the group to which the device receiving the request is assigned, that device must store the communications for all of the groups it can receive. If the devices that receive and rebroadcast the communications have a limited amount of storage, the storage of communications solely for the purpose of responding to the occasional request from another group can take a significant amount of the storage capacity of the device. This storage capacity may be needed by the device for other purposes.
What is needed is a system and method that can store communications for other groups without interfering with the storage needs of the device.